Spreading the word about the growing presence of progressive Alaskans and their powerful ideas on the web

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Ray Metcalfe on His Initiative and Referendum to Defeat the Corrupt Bastards Club II's SB 21

On Friday, I interviewed Alaska's most influential and enduring muckraker, Ray Metcalfe.

Back at the beginning of the current legislative session, he predicted that the big oil companies would buy or coerce enough votes in the Alaska Senate to pass Senate Bill 21, which they did on Wednesday. He has conceived of a two-part plan to repeal SB 21 and reinstate ACES, should Alaska's voters want that. Reading through the comments in the Anchorage Daily News article on SB 21's passage, it appears he may have a very willing voting constituency for such a set of moves.

Metcalfe is getting help from members of the Senate who opposed the multi-billion-dollar giveaway. Sen. Bill Wielechowski, who was quoted back on March 12th as stating "If it takes a popular citizens movement, an uprising from the people of this state to show that we're sick and tired of a Legislature that's not going to listen to us, I'm going be behind it 100 percent," is providing support for Metcalfe. He is also getting free legal support from attorneys familiar with both oil company tactics, and with Alaska voting laws and statutes. And - as has been the case for over a decade regarding Alaska oil company corruption of our legislators - the doors to the FBI's top investigators are wide open to Ray.

I interviewed Ray Metcalfe on Friday afternoon, when we got together at the Cafe del Mundo coffee shop on Benson Boulevard in Anchorage.

Count me in like Flynn! Although I don't hang in a very big circle, I'll do my best to spread the word. These repugnants are walking all over us in the most blatant ways I have seen in my 60 years in Alaska. I am simply aghast how brazen they are. Get the injunction. The Corrupt Bastards Club can form their own posse in prison.

I can't help but conjure an image of Bill Allen stroking his, uh, horse, and laughing maniacally.

If the public didn't want SB21, why wasn't the public actively against SB21-supporting candidates last November?

The majority of the public is indifferent, at best.

Parnell proposed these taxes years ago--the public has had plenty of time to organize and oppose this. Conscientious legislators such as Gary Stevens gave the public an opportunity to scrutinize these changes and react against them if it felt this necessary-- yet the public at large did nothing.

I suppose the public will finally get with it when the consequences of such poor representation begin to become particularly painful, but I am not even sure this is true. I live in Fairbanks, which is becoming a terrible place to live--but still no outcry.